Beyond the Edge

For nearly two thousand years, men and women have sought to find Earth's elusive northernmost point of land. In Beyond the Edge, Gerald Johnson chronicles the search for this unique and mysterious place. The journey joins together vastly different civilizations and eras in a common quest. The ancient Greeks, the Vikings, and European and American explorers-past and present-all share the ambition, courage, and persistence needed to find and to understand a frozen land of light and darkness called Thule. How can it be that explorers, scientists, and adventurers have all been drawn into the challenge of finding this northernmost point? What began simply as a geographical search has become something more. And yet a question remains: have we truly discovered one of our planet's last frontiers? Based on years of research and his own exploration, Gerald Johnson tells the story of the triumphs and defeats of these brave explorers. Never before has this overlooked aspect of our world's history been documented in this way and told by someone who has himself looked out upon this legendary vista.

In the 1870s, maps of Greenland were incomplete, and the interior was a blank space. Was there ice from coast to coast, or was there land somewhere in the middle? Did, or could, anything live there? Neither explorers nor local inhabitants had yet ventured beyond the coast. Then, in 1876, the Danish government began a series of expeditions to answer the question of what lay inland from Greenland's coast, setting off more than a century of Ice Cap investigations to explore this mysterious and strategically valuable piece of land. And while the characteristics of the expeditions may have changed over time, each trip had its own significance and offered its own revelations. The intrepid explorers leading these expeditions had different motivations: exploration, national pride, fame, or the satisfaction of setting foot on virgin soil. Many did not return alive, but those who did brought back a collection of fascinating adventure stories. The selections in this volume include just a few of these accounts, but they give the reader an insight into the men who made these remarkable journeys.

Before GPS, celestial navigation was an essential part of polar exploration. It was so critical that it was often the cause of the success or failure of expeditions. Beyond the Edge, Vol. III relates firsthand accounts of the critical role played by navigators in arctic exploration.